Can Communities Survive The World of Trump?

I don't get out much. I'm not sure if it's because I took perverse pride in a report card that said "does not play well with others" or because I accepted as a gospel-like injunction Groucho Marx's statement "I don't want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members" without knowing that it was a letter of resignation from a club.

Instead of going out, I spend too much time watching YouTube videos about fountain pens, folding knives, other everyday carry gear, comic books, and books. Many content producers discuss their own wonderful communities. There is apparently, a "fountain pen community," a "gear community," and a "BookTube community." It's unclear whether my buying more than a few pens or pocket knives and my leaving a few comments on random videos makes me a member of any of these communities, so I muse about the term community while I drink too much Koffee Kult coffee, a product that a member of the gear community introduced to me.

As the country has had a month of discussions about bakers baking or not baking cakes for same sex couples' weddings and whether a restaurant should have served Sarah Sanders, I have mused a bit more about flesh and blood communities.

That musing is why this Donald Trump tweet alarms me more than his usual bluster.

A vote for Democrats in November is a vote to let MS-13 run wild in our communities, to let drugs pour into our cities, and to take jobs and benefits away from hardworking Americans. Democrats want anarchy, amnesty and chaos - Republicans want LAW, ORDER and JUSTICE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 6, 2018

If one takes this 280 character missive seriously, then my neighbor who puts a sign for a Democratic candidate for the state legislature in his yard wants to take away my Republican neighbor's job and usher in anarchy. If my Republican neighbors truly desire justice and order, can they break bread at the church potluck with someone who wants to "let drugs pour into our cities"? Is it truly safe to let Democrat who will "let MS-13 run wild in our communities" coach little league or youth soccer? Won't they actively recruit the young'uns into gang activity?

I'm sure good Republicans will tell me this tweet is just campaign rhetoric meant to produce a few liberal tears and nothing more. Hyperbole is, after all, an accepted device for times when an author wants to nothing more than tell a big lie. Yet history is replete with examples of humans accepting and acting upon a big lie about other ethnic groups, religions, or political parties. None of those examples produced law, order, or justice.

Perhaps I have taken to heart too deeply the line from Men in Black "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals . . ." and should trust others more. However, if one reverses the line and decides that a person may become a panicky dangerous animal but people are smart, it took only one person to decide that a pizza parlor was a base for pedophiles to fire his gun inside the restaurant. I am sufficiently pessimistic to believe the next person who acts on hot rhetoric will be a better shot.

There's probably some bad joke about the fountain pen, or in this case keyboard, being mightier than the sword or watching more gear community videos to get my bugout bag or bug-in preps in order, but I'm just going to state I've start worrying that small town or large city community may not be possible when one political party sees itself as the sole protector of law order and justice and believes the other side is actively producing anarchy and chaos.

Where One Lives Determines One's Political Leanings (Sort Of)

From this NBC First Read post

. . . 62% of those living in urban areas wanted to see the U.S. Supreme Court legalize gay marriage, while a plurality of rural residents (47%) opposed it, according to the latest NBC/WSJ poll. In Urban America, 57% believe the federal health-care law is working well or needs just minor modifications, versus 63% in Rural America who wanted it overhauled or totally eliminated. And 50% of rural residents think free trade has hurt the United States, compared with just 27% who believe that in urban areas. . . .Indeed, the same NBC/WSJ poll finds 55% of urban respondents identifying as Democrats, versus just 31% of rural respondents who are Dems.

On the other hand, where one consumes or purchases foodstuffs might be equally important:

David Wasserman, who analyzes politics at the Cook Political Report, measures the change by examining how Democratic presidential candidates performed in counties with a Whole Foods—the upscale grocery store that stocks organic goods—and in counties with a Cracker Barrel, the homestyle restaurant featuring chicken n' dumplings.

In 1992, Bill Clinton won 60% of the Whole Foods counties and 40% of the Cracker Barrel counties, a 20-point difference. That gap that has widened every year since, and in 2012, Mr. Obama won 77% of Whole Foods counties and 29% of Cracker Barrel Counties, a 48-point difference.

"Politics hangs on culture and lifestyle more than policy," Mr. Wasserman said.

Either way, the political results are stark.

Chart Of The Day: Americans View Members Of The Opposite Political Party As Threats to The Nation Edition

After reading the results of this Pew Research Center Poll, it would be fun to make a snarky comment about Democrats and Republicans just not being that into each other, but this split seems a bit too serious for snark.

Andrew Sullivan contends the nation is in a cold civil war. At times Sullivan tends toward hyperbole; however, if over a third of Republicans believe Democrats are a threat to the nation's well being while over a quarter of Democrats feel the same about Republicans, then one must question if the nation has now become a house divided against itself.

Quotation Of The Day: Education Polarization Edition

From this John Merrow post:

Companies like Pearson are getting rich while we blather and battle. They step into the vacuum and measure everything that’s measurable. We should be measuring what counts, instead of counting whatever we are able to measure.

Our school and political leaders ask, “Can kids read?” but they and we must also be asking, “Do kids read?”

Are are we also polarized about the purposes of public education? I am not sure whether we are polarized, indifferent or excluded from the conversation, but we have a real problem. The goal of school is to help grow American citizens. Four key words: help, grow, American, citizen. Think about those words:

Help: Schools are junior partners in education. They are to help families, the principal educators.

Grow: It’s a process, sometimes two steps forward, one back. Education is akin to a family business, not a publicly traded stock company that lives and dies by quarterly reports.

American: E Pluribus Unum. We are Americans, first and foremost.

Citizen: Let’s put some flesh on that term. What do we want our children to be as adults? Good parents and neighbors, thoughtful voters, reliable workers? What else?